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liralen's review
4.0
Raphael was the child of Holocaust survivors, and for much of his life that identity shaped everything he knew about Germany and about Europe more generally: This was, in fact, Europe for me—a slaughterhouse as much as a continent (67). Some parts of his parents' stories he knew, while others were, decades later, still too painful to return to: they had escaped certain death so many times, and lost so many people dear to them, and faced a new kind of poverty as immigrants in the US.
It was only as an adult that Raphael went to Germany as part of a work trip and began to see Germany in a different light—as a country that had worked to recover from the atrocities it had committed during World War II, and with a young population knowing the history of their country. I don't have Raphael's background, of course, but my shifting perception of Germany is not altogether dissimilar to his; before I first visited Germany in my 20s, I had very little concept of its history (or present) outside the Holocaust. An aside, with spoiler tags for tangent length: In any case, like Raphael—but without any of his family's traumatic background—it was only once I visited Germany that I was able to understand it in a context other than that of WWII.
The book loses some momentum in the second half; stories of winging around a country for speaking engagements are never going to be as interesting to me as stories of finding one place and staying there for a while. Still, this at least somewhat satisfies my desire for contemporary memoirs set in Germany.
It was only as an adult that Raphael went to Germany as part of a work trip and began to see Germany in a different light—as a country that had worked to recover from the atrocities it had committed during World War II, and with a young population knowing the history of their country. I don't have Raphael's background, of course, but my shifting perception of Germany is not altogether dissimilar to his; before I first visited Germany in my 20s, I had very little concept of its history (or present) outside the Holocaust. An aside, with spoiler tags for tangent length:
Spoiler
Many of my friends in Europe find it hard to compute that I don't know of family directly affected by WWII—my grandmother served in the WAS as a secretary, but in Olso, where I expect she was pretty safe, and we have an incredibly grumpy-looking photo of my grandfather in hospital with diphtheria in Alexandria when he was in the Navy, but I never knew him and know little about his time in the Navy. And...surely family members were evacuated or served in the British army, etc., but it's not a part of family lore.The book loses some momentum in the second half; stories of winging around a country for speaking engagements are never going to be as interesting to me as stories of finding one place and staying there for a while. Still, this at least somewhat satisfies my desire for contemporary memoirs set in Germany.
readerjim's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting, well-written look of the son of Holocaust survivors who goes to Germany on an author's tour. He must confront his mixed feelings about the country that so forever altered his life.
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